Lajolo said anti-Christian feeling existed where political agendas of Western countries were believed to be driven by Christianity
Anti-Christian sentiments are running high in Muslim countries and other parts of the world because of the US-led so-called war on terrorism, the Vatican warned.
“It should be recognized that the war against terrorism, even though necessary, had as one of its side-effects the spread of ‘Christianophobia’ in vast areas of the globe,” Vatican’s Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told a US-organized conference on religious freedom at Rome’s Gregorian University Friday, December 4.
He was the latest Vatican official to decry what the Church fears will be a difficult future in regions where Christians are in the minority, Reuters news agency reported.
The Vatican strongly opposed and frequently criticized the US-led invasion of Iraq under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
Pope John Paul II said US President George W. Bush assumed a “grave responsibility before God” in invading the oil-rich country.
“Christian-Driven”
Lajolo, the Vatican’s second-ranking diplomat, said anti-Christian sentiments existed where political agendas of Western countries were believed to be driven by Christianity.
He said this was why the Vatican had insisted that “Christianophobia be condemned together with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism” in recent UN human rights documents.
Following the terrorist 9/11 attacks, President Bush made a real gaffe by describing his war on terrorism was a “crusade.”
Accused by observers of “Christianizing” his administration, he was quoted as saying in a recent book that God had chosen him to lead the nation.
Observers believe that anti-Islam rants by top US officials and figures helped entrench the notion that the US administration was acting in the name of religion.
In October 2003, William Boykin, the then new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, described Muslims’ God as “an idol .”
He even said America’s “spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”
Conversion
Archbishop Lajolo further admitted that the perceived dislike of Christians was taking place because “their institutions and their activities are seen as attempts to win converts or interfere in local cultures.”
The New York Times revealed Monday, November 1, that South Korean missionaries are now taking the lead in aggressively evangelizing Muslims in Arab countries.
Only days into the US-led invasion in March 2003, two leading evangelical Christian missionary organizations were readying teams on the Iraqi-Jordanian borders to provide Iraqis with “physical and spiritual needs .”
British reports revealed in December 2003 that US missionaries, mainly evangelicals, were pouring into the predominantly Muslim Iraq, under the cover of humanitarian aid.
The US military confirmed that four US missionaries had been killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.